Month: October 2006

Torchwood
Day One by Chris Chibnall

Here it is, almost a week after Day One aired and I’m just now putting out this review. Why the delay? Oh, I could go on about a busy week, family members being sick, some kid at my daughter’s school with hoof and mouth disease or any of a number of reasons, but the real reason was sex.

My immediate reaction to the episode was that it was a juvenile example of a writer trying to cram something he shouldn’t into a story just to prove he could do it. It’s rather like a teenager loosed from his parents’ supervision and he suddenly starts to do stupid things – just because he can get away with it. My delay was because, having felt like they’d done the exact same thing in the first episode, I wanted to make sure I was not combining the two episodes into one and responding to a compounded gut reaction rather than weighing the merit of what was being presented.

So without further introduction…

Synopsis
Gwen’s now on her first day at Torchwood and an alien arrives to shag the boys in Cardiff to death. No, I’m not making that up, nor am I referring to a crap plot from a low-budget porn film, nor the next Austin Powers movie. That’s really what this story is about. Oh, there’s some human drama about trying to save the poor infected girl rather than killing her, but basically, it’s just a poor excuse for the snogging and shagging. (Whoops, rant on there for a moment… let’s try that again.)

Gwen, newest member of Torchwood is going to start her first day tomorrow, so, to celebrate, she’s decided on an all-nighter with her boyfriend, but that gets interrupted by the arrival of a meteor-like spacecraft.

The Torchwood team take control of the situation and begin analyzing the rock/craft. Gwen tosses a tool, which, with only a light toss, manages to embed deeply into the apparently not-so durable craft from another world, releasing a gas-like alien. The alien floats into town and inhabits the body of a 19 year old girl. She proceeds into the nearest club, picks up a guy, hauls him (willingly) into the ladies room where she has sex with him. He enjoys himself up to the point of ejaculation, where he explodes into a little pile of dust.

Torchwood investigates and, luckily for them, the security guard at the club was watching the couple on the security monitors (while slipping one off his wrist) and saw the “murder.”

Gwen, feeling really guilty about releasing the alien, uses her police skills to track down the girl and take her into Torchwood’s custody.

First the alien explains that it has come to Earth to feed off the sexual energy of orgasms. Then the alien overcomes Gwen with pheromones which leads to some girl on girl kissing and a bit of breast-fondling, before the alien backs off because it really has to be a man to give it what it needs.

Study of the alien shows that the possessed girl will soon explode. Gwen, feeling ever more guilty by the minute, feels Torchwood must do something to help her, and this really brings up the only solid dramatic aspect of this story – the dichotomy between Gwen’s desire to help people, versus the Torchwood mentality of suppression and cover-up. It’s a theme I believe they’ll continue to explore – if the writers can just keep their minds out of their trousers.

The alien uses pheromones to overcome Owen, escape and take his clothes. In a gross plot blunder, she doesn’t screw him to death, but leaves him alive for no apparently good reason. (Or could it be Owen can’t get it up?).

She then kills off her ex-boyfriend and the men in the wanking rooms at the fertility clinic the host worked at.

Again, Torchwood arrives, Gwen is willing to sacrifice her life, Capt. Jack imparts a magical kiss and then uses alien technology to capture and kill the alien.

It’s all in a day’s work for Capt. Jack and the intrepid Torchwood team.

Analysis
No bones about it, my opinion is this was a poor excuse for a plot motivator.

That said, the episode was well-crafted. I’d go so far as to say impeccably well-crafted. The acting, pacing, dialog and cinematography all worked well and while it certainly wasn’t an intellectually challenging episode, they touched on a few aspects of the format of the show which I feel hold great promise for the future. I’m eagerly anticipating this week’s episode.

One thing that I am pleased about – you know darned good and well this is what they would have done to Doctor Who if they’d been given a completely free hand, so perhaps it’s best they get it out of their systems this way.

Technorati Tags: Blog, Review, Torchwood

I’m not one for giving spoiler warnings, but, in the interests of global harmony, this and all future Torchwood reviews and commentary are apt to have spoilers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The BBC aired the first two episodes of the new Russell T. Davies’ Sci-Fi series, Torchwood, Sunday. The overnight ratings are in and they are good, really good. Record-breaking good, in fact. The story follows Capt. Jack Harkness, late of Doctor Who, as he runs Torchwood 3, a ultra-top secret organization designed to collect alien technology and utilize it for mankind’s defense.

Mention of Torchwood made nauseatingly regular appearances in last season’s Doctor Who episodes, culminating in a battle between the Cybermen and the Daleks which destroyed Torchwood 1.

Despite the two episodes being run back-to-back, even sharing the same end credit space, I’ll treat them separately.

Episode 1
Everything Changes by Russell T. Davies

Everything Changes is a basic pilot episode, told from the viewpoint of Gwen, a Cardiff police constable who sees too much and can’t let the mystery go. Her investigations lead her deeper and deeper into the mystery that is Torchwood until she finally discovers Capt. Jack in their secret base at the Cardiff Millennium Center – the place which, not coincidentally, the Doctor, Rose and Jack parked the TARDIS two years ago on top of a temporal rift for recharging. Rather like SHADO from the classic 60’s series, UFO, the super-secret base is underground. Security is absolute and unwitting witnesses have their memory erased by amnesia drugs. In fact, the story reminded me a lot of the UFO episode “Exposed”, which told how the character of Paul Foster learned about SHADO and then doggedly investigated until they reached the point they had to kill him or let him join.

Like RTD’s first episode of Doctor Who, Rose, this story is also told from the perspective of the outsider being drawn in. It’s a tactic he likes to ground the story with the viewer and, while generally successful, the episode still suffers from pilotitis, that malady that afflicts most shows that need too much introduction, yet at the same time must have a conventional mystery to solve, too.

In this episode, the secondary mystery is so underplayed as to make the viewer not really care, it’s incidental, and that’s good. The second good thing is that, rather than try to cram the extra story in the pilot, the showed two episodes back to back, allowing Torchwood to have a proper introduction, without leaving the viewers cold for a week.

In general, I enjoyed both episodes, but I have my reservations. The signs are already showing that a series-wide hook will be running through the episodes. With luck, they won’t be as awful as “Bad Wolf” and “Torchwood” from Doctor Who. Jack, we learn, is now immortal (probably because Rose revived him in Parting of the Ways) and is waiting for a special kind of Doctor (Who, could that be, I wonder) to help him out. We also see that he’s got the Doctor’s severed hand in a jar. (Alright, they don’t specifically say it’s the Doctor’s hand, but Jack is awfully attached to it.)

Jack spends an inordinate amount of time on completely impractical rooftop locations, so that the camera helicopters can dramatically take in the scenery. The cameras spend a distracting amount of time pointlessly flying over Cardiff.

What about the celebrated “adult” aspects of Torchwood or perhaps the much-blogged “RTD Gay Agenda”?

“Adult” drama can mean several things. It could mean profanity, gore and violence or, of course, sex. Everything Changes was consistent with a PG-13 rated movie in the US. Profanity, some blood and violence, kissing and implied sex. Consistent, that is, apart from one thing. It was fairly tame, but certainly not for my 4-year old.

The “one thing” of course was that some of the kissing was man-on-man action, with implication that it would lead further, much further. Was it the “RTD Gay Agenda”, or an effective way to demonstrate just what an amoral slime Owen Harper is? Only more episodes will tell for sure.

Looks like they won’t be selling this series to the Sci-Fi channel, though.

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